I believe I speak for all us fans when I say that we are thrilled by the news that Southland has been renewed by a 4th season! We may have to wait until next January to see new episodes (as the latest unconfirmed rumors indicate), but hey, at least we are getting more of our favorite show!! We have something to look forward to for the remainder of the year and much to discuss with speculations, story ideas and so on.

On a side note, thank you to everyone who signed our “Renew Southland” Petition – while ultimately it may have proven unnecessary (or maybe not? who knows!) I know that the show of support was appreciated on many levels, by many people – you’ll have to trust me on this one and leave it at that . We got over 2000 signatures on the petition (slightly less than that confirmed), with only word-of-mouth advertising for it, and for that we are very appreciative. Thankfully (and with thanks to TNT and Warner Brothers) it was not necessary for us to really push the petition into overdrive.

Sadly, the news of the renewal was marred by the tragic events in Japan earlier this month. For those of us on this site and the online Southland Fan community, this is brought all that much closer to home because of the immense and important participation in our community by our very own Hinako, aka @pinelou, who along with her family is a resident of Tokyo. Of course, our hearts go out to all of those affected by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami, but as with any disaster of this sale, knowing someone personally who has been affected by a disaster really brings it home for you, no matter how large or small.

After speaking with our website Steering Committee as well as several of the cast members of Southland, I have decided to hold a Charity Auction to help raise some funds for Japan. We may not raise millions, or even thousands, of dollars for them, but in a situation like this every penny counts. So let’s show the world what the Southland Fan community can do! (continue reading…)

Just shortly after Shawn Hatosy left our chat, C Thomas Howell joined us. This was the second time that he did! Per his request, we were not in the moderator’s mode so I hope you will be able to follow.

Also in the chat room at the same time was Lee Lofland, author of Police Procedure and Investigation, A Guide for Writers, host and founder of the Writers’ Police Academy, and who writes and maintains The Graveyard Shift, a blog for writers about cops and writers. Links will be found in the chat.

C_Thomas_Howell joined.
snowprince Just wanted to tell you Lee, great blog. Fellow retired bluesuit here
bob Tommy is back!
lisa0914 Wb, Cth!
coopman Cth
trojan yay!
gingercara Welcome back Tommy! (continue reading…)

Our regular Thursday night chat turned into a treat for fans when cast member Shawn Hatosy (Sammy) joined us for a Q&A chat. We went into moderator mode so as not to overwhelm Shawn with the nearly 175 questions that were submitted. Shortly after Shawn left, C Thomas Howell (Dewey) stopped by also. We will be posting that transcript in the next couple of days.

Make sure to join us every Thursday at 9:00 pm Eastern time for our weekly chat. We never know who will stop by to join us.

Below is a transcript and there are a couple of things you should know.

You will see the name of the person/chatter. The chatter’s name will have a letter in parenthesis after it, indicating that it is a Comment ( C ), Question ( Q ), or just a Post (P) to the chat room. If it’s a comment or question, then Shawn (“shawnyhats”) will have an Answer (A) following.

jbeaton(Q) Where was the scene filmed where the gang member had to dig the hole?

shawnyhats(A) Lancaster — way out in the middle of nowhere –the actor who played the banger was incredible

maryellen(Q) Shawn, is there going to be repercussions for Sammy for what he did to the banger?

shawnyhats(A) there might be more to this story — that’s all I’ll say

Kathryn(Q) What has been your favorite scene to shoot this season?

shawnyhats(A) All the scenes with Nate are memorable. I miss that guy — saw him last night at the wrap party (continue reading…)

Photo Credit: TNT/Doug Hyun

Our regular Thursday night Live Southland Chat turned out to be a real treat for fans of the show last week, as cast members Kevin Alejandro (Detective Nate Moretta) and Shawn Hatosy (Detective Sammy Bryant) joined us for an impromptu Q&A chat that was successful beyond our wildest dreams!

We quickly switched over to “Moderation Mode” in the chat room, so as not to swamp the poor guys with a million questions coming at them all at once. A million thanks to the very patient fans who sat through the crickets chirping for a long time of silence, while both the moderators and the special guests quickly had to learn a few tricks about how to use the tools, but then things picked up steam and we were off! According to my very able and brilliant moderators, @lvmyjags and @jennnoe13 (who did an OUTSTANDING job!) Kevin and Shawn responded to nearly 100 questions combined during the chat. That’s quite a feat!

Not only did we get this once-in-a-lifetime chance to chat with both of these wonderful men, immediately following the tragic events of Tuesday night’s episode, Code 4, focusing on them and culminating in Nate’s death, but we set a record for the site as well. We actually maxed out the chat room for the first time since we introduced our live chat service. Not once, but consistently several times throughout the evening we had full capacity of 50 chatters in the room! Not bad for an all volunteer, donation-only supported site, wouldn’t you say?
(continue reading…)